Search engines provide a powerful tool for locating documents in a large database of documents, such as the documents on the World Wide Web (WWW) or the documents stored on the computers of an Intranet. The documents are located in response to a search query submitted by a user. A search query may consist of one or more search terms.
In one approach to entering queries, the user enters the query by adding successive search terms until all search terms are entered. Once the user signals that all of the search terms of the query have been entered, the query is sent to the search engine. The user may have alternative ways of signaling completion of the query by, for example, entering a return character, by pressing the enter key on a keyboard or by clicking on a “search” button on a graphical user interface. Once the query is received by the search engine, it processes the search query, searches for documents responsive to the search query, and returns a list of documents to the user. A user may then wish to edit the original query. Once the edit is complete, the user signals completion of the edited query, and the search engine searches for documents responsive to the edited query.
Because the original query and any subsequently edited query are each not sent to the search engine until the user has signaled that the query is complete, time passes while the user is finishing the full search query. It would be desirable to have a system and method of speeding up this process.